Hey hey! See, look, Im not dead! IM ALIIIVVVEEEEE. :D

This is for my love Krystal, and because its THANKSGIVING TOMORROW. This fic idea has been floating around in my head for a while, so I thought I should get it out in time for the holidays.

Ill post the next and final chapter tomorrow! In the mean time, Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own Static Shock, so please don't sue me, thanks!

In retrospect, Richie thought pensively, he probably should not have called his grandmother an "insufferable hag".

Even if that's what she was.

But still, it had been harsh. It was Thanksgiving, he should have behaved better. He reminded himself that it was not the holiday that upset him, just the people he had to constantly spend it with.

The blonde boy sighed, and swung his legs over the edge of the worn wood plank of the dock. The wood was soft, and slightly damp from the constant contact of lake Onalaska. The air smelled salty, not unlike the ocean, thought Richie knew that Onalaska was a manmade lake. He could hear the water below him slosh against the wooden dock underneath him. In the distance a boat had pulled out of the harbor and was making its way to the other side of the huge lake.

He wished his Nana liked him the way he was.

He looked above him. The sky was a bright blue, the clouds were wispy strands of white scattered about within it. The sun was out, shining diligently, even though it was not enough to overpower the November chill in the air. Still, it was about 3 o clock, so the sun was high in the sky and it warmed Richie's face. He took off his glasses and the world went a little bit blurrier.

He closed his eyes and breathed in, feeling the chilly breeze around him and filling his lungs with the salty spray of the water.

His stomach growled.

He was really hungry.

Richie opened his eyes and looked down at his stomach, as if he couldn't understand the phenomenon of hunger. But after reminding himself that he had stormed out of the house before his mother had even managed to carve the Thanksgiving turkey, he found that he was no longer surprised. He had not eaten anything all day.

He wondered for a second if what he had done, was worth it?

When he got home later, his hunger would be the last of his problems. His father would be furious. His mom would be too, she had warned him about what he might face today.

Richie thought about his mother, what she had said to him when he was in the kitchen with her earlier.

"Sweetie, you know your father and I love you, right? We love you for who you are."

"….mom."

"And that your father loves his mother, and that he doesn't like giving her a hard time."

"Mom."

"And you know how uncomfortable for your father it would be to have to talk to his mother about how you are a homosexual, and that the people closest to this family are black and how I am not a natural red head."

"Mom!"

Richie tried not to laugh at his mother's pathetic attempt at a pep talk.

It was Maggie's annual 'rallying cry' for the arrival of his grandmother. His father was at the train station, probably on the way back by now actually, picking up his Nana Charlotte. This year, like every year, she wanted to ready Richie for his Grandmothers annual Thanksgiving visit, which he made plain that he hated with a passion.

Of course, this year, his mother had added in the snippet about Richie's sexuality, since he had come out 8 months ago, and word travels fast in the Foley family. Still, his parents weren't ashamed, nor were they unaccepting.

He just wished his grandmother could be that way.

But really, his grandmother had never been happy with him, even before he admitted that he was gay. She thought he was too skinny, to nerdy, too this, too that, not enough girlfriends, 'why don't you play any sports dick?', and of course her refusal to call him Richie, or even Richard. She was a nightmare.

And every year for Thanksgiving, she graced them with her presence. And every year Richie had to endure her loud chewing and even louder criticism. Not to mention that he had to hide the fact that his best friend was African American, so a lot of the pictures with Virgil or Robert (who, under strange and wonderful circumstances, had become good friends with Sean Foley. ) in them were removed.

"It doesn't matter mom. I still hate her." Richie said moodily as he folded a napkin on the kitchen counter.

His mother stopped stirring the gravy in the pot and fixed an icy glare on her son. "Richard Osgood Foley, you do NOT hate your grandmother." Richie refused to look at her.

Maggie sighed and reached forward, across the kitchen counter. She took her sons face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. His face was warm.

"When did my baby boy ever grow up to be so hateful? This isn't the son I had yesterday. Where did he go? Sir, could you direct me to my son? He's blonde, wears glasses, has no luck what-so-ever of growing facial hair, and doesn't hate his own grandmother."

Richie tried not to smile, but he lost that battle with himself. He felt the corners of his mouth turn upward, and his glasses rise with his cheeks.

"That's my boy." Said Maggie, leaning up and kissing Richie's forehead. Usually, Richie hated her random bouts of tenderness towards him; he felt that she was coddling him, he was 18 years old, in his last year of highschool, and she still called him her baby boy.

But sometimes, and these times were more accepted when his father wasn't around, he didn't mind.

Maggie released him, but did not take her gaze from him. "You can tolerate her for one day Richie. Yes, she will call you Dick, and she will ask where all your girlfriends are, and talk about how much better your father was when he was your age, but then she will be gone in the morning and none of it will matter." And with that, she went back to her gravy, which seemed to have halted boiling just so she could have a moment with her son. After a moment of inspection, she picked up two gravy packets set to the side and handed them to Richie.

"I guess I really did buy too much. Put those in the pantry will you hon?"

Richie nodded, putting them in his pocket. He would put them away when he was done folding the napkins. He picked one up and fingered the lacy edges.

"You know, your grandma gave me those napkins when me and your father were married." Said Maggie, not looking up from her gravy.

"No wonder they are so hideous." Said Richie, pulling a face as he folded the one in his hand. Maggie laughed.

"She is old Richie, and your father loves her. I doubt we have many more thanksgivings with her left. He just doesn't have the heart to fight with her about things that she doesn't understand." She said, redirecting the subject to what she knew was really on Richie's mind.

Richie's smile faded a bit.

He was gay, and he was best friends with a black kid; both things his Nana thought to be sins in the same league as murder and voting democrat. He saw so much of his grandmother in his father, but at the same time, so little.

Unlike Nana Charlotte, Sean Foley loved Richie more than he loved his own opinions, and though he did not always see eye to eye with his son about his life choices, he would always, always, choose his relationship with Richie above everything else.

He accepted that his son was gay. He accepted who his son hung out with. In fact, with time, he learned to more than accept, and embrace, rather than shun. Richie's relationship with his father was complicated but Sean loved his son, and worked hard to try to be as cooperative with Richie as he possibly could.

This was something that Richies grandmother would never do.

Sean Foley had grown more in the past few years than he had in most of his adult life. He just had a hard time keeping up with his new outlook on life in front of his mother's antiquated sense of right and wrong.

And though it annoyed Richie to deal with his father's hastily changing the subject anytime that his mother's comments got out of line, Richie was at least thankful that his dad didn't agree with the awful things she said. That was something, at least.

Somewhere in the distance, a ship horn rattled the still air, bringing Richie out of his daydreams from this morning.

He looked toward his knees, saw the water 7 or 8 feet below him.

Part of him wished he had listened to his mother, changed the subject hastily like his father, and eaten his mashed potatoes in silence. That part of him regretted the things he said in anger, regretted the dirty looks and the napkin that was thrown. He wished that he hadn't looked to his mother and father for backup, only to be greeted by their stunned faces.

The other part of him was happy to know that his grandmother knew what he really thought of her, and he smiled as he remembered the look of angry surprise on her face as he left, as if he had reached across the finely set table slapped her clear across her wrinkly face.

And another small part of him wished that he actually had.

He felt the corners of his mouth rise and fall like the waves below.